Contents

Overview/Features

features two tuners, and have two antennas. You'll have adapter0 and adapter1 in /dev/dvb, which you can use separately.

The "Diversity" option is a hardware based feature that allows for the device's two receivers to be configured in a combined use mode to achieve better reception on a single channel. The diversity feature of the DiBcom demodulators is currently not implemented in the Linux-DVB drivers, so only the dual tuner configuration is presently supported on such devices [1].

It seems that either this tuner stick does not have a very sensitive tuner, or the small antennas that come with it are simply insufficient for real-life use, unless one lives next door to a broadcast tower and has a direct line-of-sight to it. It is thus likely that an external antenna with a builtin amplifier is needed when this tuner is used.

August 29,2008 - Issues with Firmware 1.20. Some issues have been found with the latest version of the firmware. Users may wish to continue to use 1.10 unless they have patched their v4l-dvb code with dib0700_new_i2c_api.patch.

November 15,2008 - Issues with Firmware 1.20.

The above mentioned dib0700_new_12c_api.patch is not available discretely but is now rolled into the mercurial drivers

dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw firmware file is now stable for reception, but remote control functionality is broken; any key press is repeated until the next key is pressed. The only way to get remote control functionality presently is to roll back to 1.10 firmware and suffer the occasional disconnect.

The mercurial drivers have been changed so they now load 1.20 firmware. To revert to 1.10 firmware you need to rename your firmware file to dvb-usb-dib0700-1.20.fw or provide a link of that name.

To avoid spurious remote control signals with 1.20 firmware, you need to edit /etc/modprobe.d/options or from Ubuntu onwards /etc/modprobe.d/options.confand add:

options dvb_usb disable-rc-polling=1

November 28,2008 - i2c errors.
Changes were made to the remote control drivers on November 16,2008 to correct the repeat key problem. The card is generally stable for dual tuner reception and remote control function with Firmware 1.20.

November 10,2009 - mt2060 I2C write failed.
Possible regression of a driver bug raised against Ubuntu running 2.6.27-14 and 2.6.31-2.17 causing mt2060 I2C errors in MythTV useage with firmware 1.20.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/397696
Recommend check the kernel extensions listed here for Low Noise Activation and rc_polling are loaded with correct config file name for your distribution, EIT listings information is turned off until a suitable delay (500ms-1000ms)is added to a single card (not both) and the card has correctly been added to the database as two tuners (no additional NULL entries) in the mythtv recordcard table.

User experiences

Date: 22.8. 2007

Distro: Ubuntu Feisty, AMD64

Kernel: 2.6.20-16-generic

The drivers shipping with Feisty are not recent enough, so installed the current v4l-dvb distribution ([3]. It can be downloaded through Mercurial's web interface (see 'bz2' & 'gz'). Otherwise, you'd have to install & use Mercurial to fetch the source.

Downloaded the new dvb-usb-dib0700-03-pre1.fw firmware from [4] & copied it to /lib/firmware (if that does not work, flash the stick with the latest firmware from Terratec on a Windows PC).

After these steps, the stick works - I was able to find channels & get TV out of them.

Update: 19.11. 2007

Tuners using the dvb-usb-dib0700 module may be unable to tune to a particular channel multiplex while receiving others just fine. This appears to be a fairly common problem that is caused by some sort of amplifier setting not getting used when it should; look for lines with "filter timeout" when running 'scan', if you are missing all channels of a particular multiplex.

In short, if experiencing this problem, try setting the following (in /etc/modprobe.d/options or /etc/modules.conf):

dvb_usb_dib0700.force_lna_activation=1

After the module has been reloaded, you might be able to find and view the missing channels :-) You can check /sys/module/dvb_usb_dib0700/parameters/force_lna_activation on your system to make sure the parameter has been set.